


The Kitchen Table

by Annerb



Series: Bonus Materials for The Changeling and Armistice Series [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate POV, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Slytherin!Ginny, canonical deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annerb/pseuds/Annerb
Summary: These are three little related ficlets from Molly's POV coveringpick it up, pick it all up and start againthroughin my head we do everything right.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Series: Bonus Materials for The Changeling and Armistice Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586182
Comments: 37
Kudos: 496





	1. Chapter 1

Molly Weasley sends eleven-year-old Ginny to school one crisp fall, not understanding that she will never get her back.

She sends one girl to that school and they send another back. It takes her years to reconcile the two, to understand that this new Ginny isn’t so much different as _tempered_. Her child was pushed up against an immoveable object, yet instead of breaking, she strengthened. And maybe the cost of that was her openness, her rashness, her easy laughter and silliness.

Molly allows herself to mourn those all the same, even as she adapts to the girl left in her place.

She only becomes thankful for all the unfathomable things her daughter has become when she has to send her precious youngest child into a school run by monsters. Send her and wonder if all of this happened just so she could survive it.

And survive she does. She comes back bruised, everything bottled carefully up inside. But she comes back. She survives.

Not all of her children do.

They all stumble through that grief, find ways to rage and blunder and fall apart and _keep going_ , and sometimes it feels like they are all pulling away, but her (remaining) children still assemble at her table, still let her fuss and feed them and try to be as they were before, even if they never will be again.

And they heal, bit by improbable bit, as the hours since she last held her child’s living, breathing frame stretch into days and weeks and months and somehow the world still keeps spinning even though it feels like it _has no right_.

Her children find ways through, find ways to breathe and be and nothing’s the same, but everything _is,_ at least, and that’s something.

George falls into the shop, that rioting, pulsing space. Running, running, and having broken conversations with himself that can never be answered, as if hoping a building can somehow shore up his world the way an empty space never will.

Bill buries himself in the possibilities of the future, the bright light of his wife and their cottage by the sea, his reckless, carefree thoughtlessness smothered and buried deep in the sand like an ancient indecipherable curse.

Charlie retreats farther and farther out into the wilds of the world, into his ever-present quiet, his depthless thoughtfulness made only deeper, more treacherous, like an endless search for something he knows doesn’t exist, one that somehow never brings him home but always _away_.

Percy endlessly bounces back and forth between who he thought he wanted to be and the tangled path he regrets like a constant ache in his bones, as if he is still looking for salvation from someone else because he can’t bear to look inside himself and not to find it—only the shards of broken ambitions.

In many ways it feels as if Ron is the one who has come out the most whole, transformed and steady even though they all suspect the things he has seen would make any of them shatter beyond repair. But when Molly thinks about it, she is not surprised, this boy— _man_ —with an ever expansive heart and jealousies and fears buried behind him like a trail of tiny graves, who loves fiercely and hums in the kitchen saying, “Eat up,” with her voice woven inside of his own.

It’s Ginny who flickers like a truth half remembered from a dream, her hair tangled from furious broom rides and streaming behind her like mangled yarn in her fumbling fingers, the way she reaches for the highest dreams like a vicious dare, a willful attempt to fall, secrets shadowing her eyes.

Ginny who has friends and teammates and a life seemingly full and yet somehow hollow, like she’s waiting for her delicately balanced house to crash down and take her with it, like it’s a given that it’s only a matter of time. As if part of her _wants_ it.

Molly does the only thing she can—she waits and watches and stands ready to catch her children if she can, to feel their living, breathing bodies against her own and pretend it can fill a hole that can’t ever be filled but only sometimes forgotten, a tiny death all over again.

She sets the table, _all_ their places; even the one destined to be forever empty. Keeps the spaces warm and open and ready.

She waits.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during _pick it up, pick it all up and start again_.

The first few days after the battle, Ginny is bedbound–first by her injuries and then by her growing dependence on the pain potions. It takes everything Molly has to pour those pain potions down the drain, the face the inevitable rage Ginny will fling towards her–or even worse, to prepare herself for Ginny to _not_ react with rage, to just keep looking at her with that empty, far away gaze.

The cloak of stiff-backed coldness Ginny drags around herself isn’t much better, but she is still up and moving, and Molly knows exactly how hard that can be these days. The endless funerals take up their days, Ginny cloaked in navy robes like a uniform, sleeves pulled down firmly over her wrists.

Molly is soon distracted by Harry falling ill and then walking in on Ron pressing Hermione back against a wall and kissing her as if his life depends on it–just another thing slipping out of her control, happening without her even noticing or being told.

Ginny starts to withdraw again too, hiding behind her secrets, disappearing _without a word_ and Molly just won’t have it. She won’t have her daughter terrifying her like this, she won’t _lose another child_.

“It isn’t safe,” she shouts in the face of her daughter traipsing around as she pleases in a world still teetering and broken.

“Since when has _anything_ been safe?” Ginny shoots back with unerring cruelty, and it’s there, her arm lifting in exasperation that Molly sees it for the first time. 

Just a flash of black ink curling around across her wrist, the same place the green snake appeared without warning, two years into her daughter being in that bloody house that nearly killed her and changed her into a _stranger_.

Ginny doesn’t stop, but presses ruthlessly on. “Where were your rules and protections this last year? When I went into that school on my own? When I got this? Or any of the _five times_ I had the Cruciatus used on me?”

Molly can’t even be glad to see something other than listlessness in her daughter, because she is too felled by what she is being told, the horrors her daughter has faced, that Molly hasn’t protected her from.

It’s Ginny who calmly approaches her hours later, asking quietly if she can spend some time at Shell Cottage. Molly can only think of how far away she already is from them.

Ginny is gone for weeks, but comes back clean-faced, somehow more faded and more steady all at once, that look still in her eye that sets Molly’s teeth on edge. Only then Ginny is quietly asking her to teach her to knit, and she grabs at the chance, like things might finally go the way they were always meant to.

Molly catches sight of it again though, that black stain on her wrist and _how could she_ and _why_ and _doesn’t she understand_?

Ginny brushes hair back from her face, the motion careless and childlike and bringing an aching pain in Molly’s chest.

She reaches out, touching her daughter’s wrist. “When did you get this?” she asks, once she trusts her voice to be calm, even if from the flinch on Ginny’s face, she has probably not achieved it.

Ginny looks down at it, fingers sliding across what Molly can now see is a spider, the lines of its body fractious and tense, full of so much energy. Such contrast to the still, quiet child in front of her.

“This one, I chose for myself,” Ginny says, chin lifted. 

Molly’s jaw tightens, the instinct there to lash out at this rash decision, the defiance in the tilt of her chin. Only she can also hear what she had been too angry to even suspect all those years before: the first tattoo was never her choice.

This new one seems no less about refusing to listen to her parents, a flaunting of stubbornness and coldness and independence and self-destructive behavior, and she nearly opens her mouth, shouts _what were you thinking_? But she still has her daughter’s voice in her head, the sheer rage and helpless emotion.

_Where were your protections then?_

Molly swallows it back, because maybe, she forces herself to consider, these are the very things that managed to keep Ginny alive. To come out of that hellish place intact, more or less. 

Like maybe she’s been mourning a daughter she never really had, rather than seeing the one right in front of her.

Molly bites back the anger and shrill words that want to escape. “Okay.”

There is a flash of relief in her daughter’s eyes, of yet another fight avoided perhaps, or maybe even something more, like this fractured distance between them has never sat well with her either. Maybe for now that is enough.

They turn back to their knitting, Ginny frowning down at the yarn tangled around her needles.

“The trick,” Molly says, reaching out to help her fingers move around the next stitch, “is in finding balance.”

Someday, she and her ever-changing daughter will find that too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during _in my head we do everything right_.

The first time Molly stumbles upon one of Ginny’s secrets, she’s almost lost another one of her sons—not one of her body or blood, but close enough that it doesn’t matter because the pain and fear live in her all the same. And to nearly lose this brave, bright young man in a supposed time of peace, after facing so much… They are all still silently reeling with that near miss, dragging up with it still painful memories of other losses. But this time, they do not have to bury anyone, do not have to leave any more seats empty, never to be filled.

Everything is just beginning to settle again when Molly comes downstairs early one morning, peering into the sitting room to see if Harry is still asleep. He’s been having a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep as he’s been weaning off the pain potions.

This morning though, as she looks in on him, he is sound asleep. He lies on his back, his face relaxed in a way she has rarely seen since the curse that nearly claimed his life.

Lying next to him is her only daughter, on her side facing him, their hands entwined in the narrow space between.

Molly considers the scene for a long moment before turning for the stairs and going back upstairs, giving the ghoul a good solid prod as she passes.

Molly didn’t want Ginny to go to Ireland, to pursue a career as dangerous and untested as Quidditch. By mostly, she wasn’t ready to let go of the last of her children. It took her ages to realize her misstep. Ginny is not one to be contained or dictated to, and it is this very part of her that has kept her safe for so long. The same way she keeps things so tightly held to her chest, the way there is far more that she hides than she shares.

And so with great effort, Molly lets things lie, knowing Harry’s near death experience and Ginny’s budding career are complications enough.

Well, she pokes _gently_ now again, just to judge reactions. She trusts them, that doesn’t mean she isn’t curious. But she has also learned the hard lesson of alienating her daughter, and isn’t eager to face that cold distance again.

As the weeks pass, nothing reveals itself, Harry back to his home and Ginny off far away to her dreams. Molly’s just begun to believe she read too much into it when it all finally breaks.

It starts with a book, if such a word can even be used to describe a pile of filth and lies held together with a binding. She reads it, mostly because no one is going to badmouth her daughter without her having something to say about it, but also because Ginny never talks about that year, and she’s curious.

When she finishes, she wishes she never picked it up in the first place. Because even if they are lies, there is a truth lying under all of it that wears the stoic mask of her daughter’s face, and some things begin to click painfully into place.

Ginny smiles and makes self-deprecating jokes that are honed with fine sharp edges that belie their ease. _I’m fine_ , she says, smile fierce and dangerous.

Even when the ministry turns its hungry eyes on her, Ginny just lifts her chin and dares them to try.

This is when it finally all falls apart.

Ginny walks into the garden one evening, only to be followed a moment later by Harry, a grim look of determination on his face. To Molly’s surprise, Harry grabs Ginny’s arm, pulling her around, and for a moment it looks like he may yell, but instead he pulls her in to his body with something like ease and familiarity and kisses her.

_Here we go_ , Molly thinks.

It’s awful watching Ginny tear him apart, shatter his poor heart right there in front of everyone, but what’s worse is the utter hopelessness in Ginny, these feelings she’s hidden so well from all of them.

* * *

Molly watches as Ron and Hermione speak furtively to each other in low tones, their topic clearly Harry. Agreement eventually made, Hermione disappears off after Harry, Ron joining the rest of her sons at the table where they currently squabble over the drama they all just watched unfold.

“What happened with Crabbe?” Molly asks, crossing over to stand at the head of the table, Arthur silently just behind.

She watches her children all glance at each other, as always, trying to decide how much to protect each other.

Ron shrugs. “No one actually knows. But fifth year he supposedly fell down a flight of stairs. He was in the infirmary for a week.”

“Wasn’t that right around when Ginny broke her collarbone?” George asks.

Ron nods. “A rogue Bludger, she always said.”

They look at each other, something passing between them.

“He was a bully,” Percy says, looking a little uncomfortable to be speaking that way of the dead, but clearly keen to exonerate his sister. “Even when I was at Hogwarts.”

George nods. “He hit Harry with that nasty late Bludger. The game we got banned. Remember?”

Ron nods.

Bill frowns. “So we’re saying that Ginny did something to Crabbe in revenge? Something that ended up putting him in hospital for a week?”

“He no doubt deserved it,” George says, valiantly trying to defend his sister, but Molly knows it’s probably more than that, to judge from the way Ginny spoke of it. The way she threw it on the ground in front of them all as if she herself were troubled by it still.

“We all make mistakes,” Molly says.

Hermione appears with a pop, walking back into the garden.

Ron jumps up to his feet.

Hermione shakes her head. He wouldn’t talk to me. He’s locked himself in his room.”

“Did he say something?” Ron asks, clearly noting how stricken she looks. “Anything?”

“About Ginny? No.”

“Did you two really not know?” Bill asks.

“He said they’d been together for _three_ _years_ ,” George points out. “Kind of a hard thing to miss.”

“But that can’t be true,” Ron says. “I mean Cass. And didn’t Ginny date Michael?”

Hermione shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’ve only suspected for a couple months.”

“A couple _months_?” Ron says, sounding outraged. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“I wasn’t certain. I only _suspected_. I mean, they’re never together, and she’s over in Ireland, so I thought maybe...”

“I can’t believe you never told me!” Ron rails.

“Clearly Harry was going to great lengths to keep it a secret. I assumed they had their reasons. And I didn’t…” She falters, eyes filling with tears.

“What?” Ron says, his anger seeming to instantly soften as he touches her back.

“I didn’t want to make him mad at me again.” 

“’Mione,” Ron sighs.

“I mean Cass. If I’d known I would never—”

“We _didn’t_ know,” Ron says.

She nods, still looking miserable. “He was really…upset. I haven’t seen him like that in a long time.”

Ron’s jaw tightens, like maybe he has some idea what that may have looked like, pulling her into a hug.

“Should someone check on Ginny?” Percy asks, glancing up towards her room.

“Go ahead, if you feel like getting hexed,” Bill says.

Molly lifts her wand. “Leave your sister be. We will eat dinner, and let this sort itself out.”

She gets some mulish looks, but no one argues.

Only once all of her sons have gone back to their homes does Molly finally climb the stairs to Ginny’s room, finding her sitting and staring at the wall like any movement would be far too painful.

The puddle on Ginny’s floor is littered with glass, but her face is the shattered, dangerous thing.

Molly tells her to come down, trying not to be alarmed when she acquiesces without a fight, mechanically eating.

Arthur speaks, and Molly reminds her this was a war they all fought.

Ginny sits at her table and bends, and Molly sees that she’s somehow talked herself into believing she doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. Because the war may not have made her into a monster, but it made her believe it all the same.

* * *

Molly has to find the deepest well of patience within herself to sit in that courtroom and not hex every so-called responsible adult in that room. She focuses on her daughter, the intense pride she feels because there she is, under the calm surfaces and dangerous words: her reckless, brave, ruthless, beautiful child.

Even more telling, she thinks, is the way so many people rally to her side. So many young people, showing devotion to each other, refusing to be bullied or to budge no matter the authority of the court, and this is the thing to give Molly faith for a future better than the endless wars she has fought. The losses they have paid.

“Alright, dear?” she asks Ginny after she is released, the inquest and the book behind her, but gaping wounds still ahead.

Molly had stood in the hall and watched Harry and Ginny fight, rail and thunder against each other yet again, but also the way Harry was fighting _for her_ , not against, that he will not be driven off by the things in Ginny that Molly herself has always struggled with. And Ginny, who seemed to shove him away with both hands almost as steadily as she held him close.

“No,” Ginny admits. “I’m not all right at all.”

That small truth tells Molly that she will be though, makes her believe it more than anything else.

* * *

Molly sits at her kitchen table with a cup of tea, the house quiet and empty. Not hollow, but simply waiting.

“Ginny never came home last night?” Arthur asks as he comes to breakfast, clearly alarmed at having found her bedroom as empty as it was when Molly first checked.

“It’s okay,” Molly says.

Arthur frowns. “How is that okay?”

Molly points to the family clock. Ginny’s hand isn’t on _traveling_ or _gallivanting about_ or even _mortal peril_. Instead, it is firmly pointing to one destination.

_Home_.

Arthur makes noise about Ginny hiding somewhere in the Burrow or the old clock needing a tuning.

Molly just smiles into her tea.


End file.
